In brief:

I'm a redheaded mama with four lovely daughters. We're based in southern Australia and travel in a small, colourful housebus — meeting inspiring people, learning lots and re-thinking everything. I feel passionately about spirituality, good design, alternative education, discussing death and conscious parenting.

Christian unschooling

3 September 10

"Once you label me you negate me." — Soren Kierkegaard

Definitions are so problematic when labelling home-schooling styles. A label limits the flexibility, the spontaneity, the changeability that attracts many people to home-schooling in the first place. Add to this a religious term like “Christian”, and your definition becomes even more laborious as it is weighed down by centuries of cultural baggage culminating in the Westernised evangelical version of churchianity prevalent in English-speaking countries.

Nevertheless, I’m going to attempt my own definition of Christian unschooling. (For other excellent summaries, have a look here, here and here.)

Christian unschooling is embracing the opportunity to keep your children at home so they can learn in a natural way through life experiences. It is trusting that God will direct their interests so they are well equipped for life and godliness. It is believing that God will enable you with wisdom to provide encouragement, time and resources. It is deliberately avoiding any attempts to measure or force your children’s learning according to others’ schedules and standards.

When I eagerly attended my first home-schooling seminar in 2008, I sat close to the front and took careful notes. One presenter said very clearly: “Unschooling is not a godly way of home-schooling, for our God is a god of order” (which I think he may have got from here although it’s a bit of a theological contortion).

Naïvely, I wrote down his words, swallowing the speaker’s precepts. Nowadays, I would raise my hand and politely enquire which curriculum Jesus was taught with, or — for that matter — which program Christ used when instructing His twelve disciples. (Upon further reflection, I must also question the motives of the speaker, who is the director of developer and distributor of home-schooling curriculum.)

At the time I heard about the perils of unschooling, my mind could only envision a modified school-at-home method of instructing children. Our journey to embracing unschooling is not actually one that we deliberately set out on, but it is a path that God has laid before us with gentleness.

David’s and my personal history have made it easier to reject the notion that institutionalised learning is better or even necessary for life. Neither David nor I completed university degrees. We simply practised our trades and learned from the experts around us — me in desktop design and David in his floorcoverings trade. Our autodidactism enabled us to pursue the skills and knowledge we needed to advance in our careers. (This is not to preclude our children from pursuing university degrees.)

So after properly analysing our own lives in light of our research on home-schooling methods, our next step was to question the arbitrary testing and grading systems. (Institutionalised learning was unnecessary for many well-known people to “succeed” in life.) And what does a child truly need to learn for life? Is it something that can be taught by a book, practised on worksheets and measured with a percentage score?

To these questions, add the emphasis that we place on working out our salvation daily — crucifying the sin nature so that God may manifest in us — and our goals in home-schooling become abundantly clear.

We would like to be the ones who tell the stories that teach our children about life. We don’t want to give our children over to just anyone — however well-intentioned they may be. We seek to live so our children know Father first and then the skills for life which necessarily must include reading, writing and the ability to pursue knowledge.

In unschooling, we must learn to not impose the obligations of institutions upon our own children’s learning. In Christian unschooling, we must not impose religious obligations that focus on righteous living without understanding that Father is the one who turns the heart to Himself. To be successful in this, we must earnestly seek God first, so we manifest the life of Christ that we want our children to learn from.

In a real sense, unschooling means we throw away the lists of age-based assessments and instead watch each child’s progress as they pursue their own interests, develop individual learning styles, build strengths and grow in knowledge and godliness. We will smile in wonder as we see each child grasp new concepts that we did not force upon them. And we will seize each teachable moment, embroidering our days with stories, questions and conversations that lead to exploration and discovery.

This is hardly different to the traditional home-schooling parent — except that we eschew schedules, curriculum, tests and grades. As a result, we hope that our children will stand or fall on their real abilities in this world — not on how well they can meet the system’s requirements. Our prayer is that Father may lead them close to Him in the process.

Perhaps it’s risky, but so are the alternatives. And this glorious risk — Christian unschooling — suits us (and others) just fine.

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Comments

Unschooling is certainly ordered. And it has a stronger order than school, for it is ordered from within the person. Unschooling teaches self-discipline (which I’ve heard is a virtue). Because we are made in the image of God, we desire to be independent. Not freedom from God, but freedom to worship God. And even the most hardcore calvinists can understand that the more we are forced to do something, the less we are willing to do it. And when did we get the idea that a kid will not learn something unless it is forced upon him? We did not get it from the Bible. They will learn sufficiently what they need to know. And they will learn those things better than other kids, for they will understand WHY they need them.

Thanks for sharing more about this. We are planning to homeschool our son and I have wondered just what the differences were between that and unschooling, as I have just started to hear about unschooling. It is wonderful that you have found something that you feel confident about and that works well for your family. You made some great points.

Great post! My answer to “Unschooling is not a godly way of home-schooling” would have to be “Judging others is not godly either” My hubby isn’t as unschool as I am, so being a good Christian wife (or I try to be!) I submit to him in this and we do do some formal school, but I try to keep it under 30 minutes a day and try to pass off stuff other than textbooks and workbooks as school. I just spent $25 for some fancy math manipulatives so I can count them as school (looks more schoolish than dried beans or buttons! LOL) We did some formal school today, but you know what my kids learned the most from today-when I gave a homeless man $5 and explained WHY I gave him $5. I didn’t go out seeking a homeless person, there is no worksheet I can put in a portfolio, it isn’t in any lesson plan, I didn’t grade them on watching me hand him the money or make them count it. But they learned something from that one small, unplanned act that I hope they will carry with them for the rest of their lives. Hopefully, one day, they will look back on that one, unplanned moment and go out of their way or make a small sacrifice and fill a need for someone else in need and they will get their A+ :) That is how I want to teach my kids….

The longer I homeschool, the more my experiences have taught me that the intertwining of all methods of homeschooling each day holds time for our unschooling, discipleship of my children, a time to read, a time to use curriculum, a time to be evaluated on their academic skill, a time simply to just live together as a family and learn without the bother of grading and documenting. This is the richness about homeschooling that I truly love.

Thanks for this post Lauren! I am not an unschooler and I think the best thing about homeschooling no matter which method one uses is that we are with our kids and they learn more from being with us than books:)

Lauren, great post. I so admire your decision. I trust that you will be able to stay firm and content with it as your children grow older. I see clearly every day that my children learn without me. However I am yet unable to embrace the unschooling model, but that is more about me than my children. So we try to work around that as best we can.

Love this post and your blog! I’m so happy to have found you. Like Sonita’s husband, mine is not as on board with unschooling as I am. Our compromise is that I am allowed to totally unschool the elementary grades with our four children, with increasing formal education as they move into high school.

I LOVE finding other Christian Unschoolers! I am so blessed to have traveled here to your amazing inspirational website. I feel so much in common, wish that I could sit and chat with you over coffee to pick your brain :)

wow you are so brave to do this – im terrified of being alone with my children in case they learn bad things from me! i kow this is rediculous but i thinks its routed in the fact taht my whole life i was told i was not good enough, i dont agree with how our south african school systems is run and what children are forced to be! i am terrified of what will happen when i try to help my child be the unique individual he is (and his sister) in this pre packed life! its tough I love reading how your kids are achieving so much in their own capacities i think its great!

I am a Christian mom who is new to homeschooling and I have these concepts (unschooling) breeding in my heart. This is after all, why I felt led to homeschool in the first place! My number one question is, what about the state tests that the kids have to take at the end of each school year? Can’t you be put on probation if you fail to take the test or score poorly if you do take it? I would love any input you have on this. Thank you so much :-)